Thank you for your well- balanced summary in last week's Times of the policies I am campaigning on as the Green Party contender in the Hale Ward by-election (Hale candidates revealed', Times Series, April 10).

I was surprised and sorry to read the British National Party is putting up a candidate in the by-election, even though it has not bothered to put anyone forward for the Barnet and Camden constituency in the more-important London Assembly elections, which will also take place on May 1.

Our philosophy is diametrically opposed to that of the BNP. The Greens are a larger and more effective party in the country as a whole, and especially in the London region, where our assembly members Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson have played a big role in the past four years in making Mayor of London Ken Livingstone adopt better environmental and social polices.

Barnet Green Party chairman Noel Lynch, who is third on the party's London-wide list for the proportional section of the May 1 elections, will join Jenny and Darren on the Assembly if the Greens obtain just 1.5 per cent more of the vote.

Unlike the BNP, the Greens are not focused on one topic. In Barnet borough, the Greens have a considerable number of dedicated members who have battled over many years to champion a wide range of matters raised by local people.

The borough of Barnet is ethnically very varied, yet is mostly harmonious, and the only consequence if the BNP began to be active here would be an increase in divisiveness.

Andrew Newby, Green Party candidate for Hale Ward Birley Road, Whetstone